In a comment on yesterday’s post on ‘Virtue Signalling’, Fr Malcolm wrote something which struck a chord:
It seems to me these days that there are conservatives and liberals in all churches.. I have more in common with some Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists, to name a few, than the liberals in my own Church.
I can think of liberals in the C of E who have more in common with liberals in other churches than with conservatives in their own church.
The real divide these days is between are those who believe the Scriptures and those who don’t.
It would be interesting to hear from others on how they feel on this one. I must say I recognised it. Those in my own Church who want abortion, contraception, women priests and the rest of the ACTA agenda have far less in common with me than those from my own former Church who don’t; I feel much the same way about Evangelical Christians. But does that mean we all ‘believe in the Scriptures’ and others do not?
I would begin with the assumption that all who claim the name Christian believe in the Scriptures, and yet, as Fr Malcolm implies, that covers a multitude of definitions of what ‘believe’ and ‘Scriptures’ mean. Do I think the exact dimensions of Noah’s ark would ensure that it floated? Do I think that a serpent in the Garden of Eden talked to Eve? Do I think Genesis is a Primer which describes in accurate detail how the earth was created? In all three cases, I suspect not, because I think that Genesis is best read as a poetic account of Creation. Do I think that everything described in the Book of the Apocalypse will come to pass, or do I think that it, like other examples of Apocalyptic literature should be read less than literally? I’d incline toward the latter. The Bible is a book containing many genres of literature. God speaks to us in many ways, He does not just dictate a book of rules and regulations, and He has revealed Himself to us definitively in the Life and Work of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ founded a Church. There was nothing to stop Him dictating a book to the Apostles, but He chose not to do do. The maker of all things, visible and invisible, knew His creation well. Give us a book of rules and we’ll either bind ourselves so tightly by it that we will end by obeying the letter and missing the spirit, or we will so explain it away with caveats, that we will end by obeying neither the letter nor the spirit, but the devices and desires of our own deceitful hearts.
So where do I end up? Probably having more in common with some liberals than I should have thought had I just applied the labels, but still far more in common with the conservatives, to whom, spiritually and intellectually, I feel more akin. But even that amount of commonality with so-called liberals, reminds me of the breadth of the Christian community. With those who cannot avow the Trinity or the Nicene Creed, I cannot say that I have communion, with a small or a a large C, though I know at least one fellow Catholic who does not believe in the Creed literally (and I’m not sure what other sort of belief in it one can have); but with Trinitarian Christians, I, like Fr Malcolm, can hold spiritual communion and learn much.
All Along the Watchtower 
Yes, I too have made that statement, as you have. Malcolm is correct. I have come to police myself to say correct, rather than right, which is a mark of how divisive things have become.
I’m quite well over on the conservative side of things, and yet, my Christianity softens the native sharpness of my tongue, mostly, usually, some of the time. All know it gets away from me, often. 🙂
And yes, I too find myself fairly often in sympathy with the liberals. I’m not too sure it doesn’t have to do with how we draw the divide on the mercy-justice line. Because I really believe God will give us justice unless we beg for mercy. And while I’m pretty hard-nosed, over the years I have learned that there really are many grey areas and that we cannot see into another’s mind, let alone soul. And so, I tend to say what I believe, but try not to be overly harsh, and realize that I am not the authority, and am very fallible, indeed.
I too would like very much to know what others have found.
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I recognise myself in so much of that Neo – which may explain why we have become friends across the years 🙂
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As I did, in your article. Yes, I think that is much of the reason, along with a few trials that have drawn us together. 🙂
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We’ve certainly had those, my friend 🙂
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That we have, my friend 🙂
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I find it quite strange for you to equate the ‘snowflake’ metaphore of the heterodox and progressive left in politics to the core purpose of the Church that is held to with unyielding love.
The Church is for orthodox believers that which is meant to transform the individual soul that comes in contact with it.
With the heterodox, they see Church as something that needs to be reformed into what they want it to be; effectively they believe in transforming the Church rather than have the Church transform them.
Likewise in politics, the same principle is at play. To become a believer in the United States and its principles or to demand that the principles themselves should change to accommodate and protect things that which the Constitution never intended to be the purview of the State is at the opposite sides of a coin.
In the latter case, of the secular liberal, I find them to be enemies of this country or on the Culture that was built upon that Constitution. In the Church I find the heterodox view that demands change in the Church to accomodate their particular favorite sins or desires to be of the same mindset. It is why the arguments in the Church are so similar and are often spoken of in terms of politics: liberal against conservative.
To remove the transcendent character from our Church and Her mode of worship is to destroy the entire prinicple of the Church. If we think that we can mold a new religion that will serve to transform men and women into “a new man” then we have destroyed that which was handed to us over the milennia. If we need not transform ourselves and we no longer have the duty to try to live by the moral teachings then we have effectively stopped the nursery from which saints and martyrs of the Church have sprung. Instead we have false saints and martyrs in a political rebellion that seeks to remake the Church into something of their own image.
I joined the Church for what she is . . .not for what I thought I could change Her into. Likewise I joined the Church to abide by its counsel and transform me from my former self.
I would cast those who oppose the Church just as I would cast those who oppose the framework of this country as enemies; in the first instance of the Church and my soul and in the second of the State and my liberty and freedoms. Satan has many unwitting abettors in this war; some secular and others religious and a good number who are operatives in both.
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Is it really that binary?
If it were, then neither the Church here on earth nor the system of government of the USA would ever stand in need of questioning and change, which, when one takes a Christian point of view, would be quite remarkable, as it would mean organisations set up and tun by fallen mankind had achieved a state of perfection; could that ever be so this side of the Second Coming?
So, yes, I think there is something in the ‘snowflake’ analogy. To conservatives, ‘snowflakes’ are people who don’t like their unquestioned certainties being questioned and who make a loud noise when the questioning starts, and who wish to shut down the process of questioning.
It is not the Church, per se, which transforms anyone – as any survey of Church history or even anecdotal experience shows; it is the encounter with Christ which happens there; or perhaps, more accurately, it is our interaction, through the Sacraments and through Grace, with Christ. A blind adherence to something called ‘orthodoxy’ could amount to no more than a strict observance of the rules; no one was thus saved, and as Paul pointed out from the beginning, were that so, then Christ would never have needed to suffer and die for us. The Church is transformed as we are, by the living encounter; it is better for the experience of the Saints, and without, for example, St Francis, St Ignatius Loyola, St Padre Pio and St John Paul II, it would not be what it is, which is an even better reflection of Christ’s purpose for us. It is a two way process, surely? If not, then how do we change and how does it change? Change is a constant, it cannot be stopped. Canute knew that, and when his courtiers denied it, he showed them that not even the sternest will and the mightiest earthly ruler could stop the tides; so it is with change. For nearly 200 years the Church’s leaders supposed they needed simply to build walls around themselves and the modern world would go away; it didn’t, it isn’t going to, and it won’t.
That is not at all the same as saying that the Church must change to accommodate my own desires, but it is to say that only dead things do not change; they decay. The Church is not dead, it lives, and the evidence of living is, as Newman pointed out, that change happens. The question is whether that change is in the spirit of the teaching of the Church, which is the teaching of Christ. Once, the Church thought it right and proper to dictate what books people could read, and to hand over the unorthodox to the State to be punished, if necessary, by burning. These things were in line with the secular fashions of the age, but they find no support in the teaching of Christ, and so they have faded as the Church has changed; does that change, that not handing over people to be burned, make the Church less or more like its Founder? Were those who thought it a bad idea to ape these secular fashions wrong to want to change. Imagine how the Church would look if it still held to those principles?
The Church is what she is – and that is the totality of those whom she embraces and who embrace her. We might well wish for fewer Prodigals, fewer of the modern equivalents of publicans and collectors, but just as the Lord reached out to these, to the evident discomfort of those Jews who proudly labelled themselves (and were) ‘orthodox’, so Christ’s Church imitates its Master. To see all who think that the Church needs reform as the tools of Satan, which is, it seems to me, close to what you are arguing, would have been to have excluded St Francis, Erasmus, Newman and many other good souls.
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I’m going to have to run off tho my ‘non-transcendent’ Mass in a few, but let me say this quickly.
The ‘change’ I speak of in regards to the Church has to do with the transcendent quality of the spiritual reality at hand. And it that instance reflected in the practice, rites and sacraments. I am understand that the world will never perfectly reflect the transcendent and spiritual reality that is present in the Church. However, within the Church we did always try to to bring it into compliance.
The opposite has now occured. The practice is being laid for a change of the everlasting spiritual principle of the living Church. It is trying to throw off the spiritual reality for a political reality that is led by practive more than by Christ. The world, as satan would like, is being turned on its head and what once was up is now down.
All the changes before now did not impact the quality of this truth that resides in the Church. The change agents today have it in their minds to divide the two and abide in the practical or worldly element and not the other way around. They have alreaddy suceeded in separating the two as masterfuly as they can. And they are well on their way of deceiving even the wise.
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Do say a prayer for me at Mass, Scoop. You raise excellent points, as ever, and we can discuss at more leisure later. I do not disagree with what you say here, or indeed, except with the caveats noted, much of what you wrote last time. I hope you are blessed at today’s Mass 🙂
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I did pray for you and for all here, C.
I suppose that what strikes me in both the State and the Church is the movement toward less order rather than perfecting order. It is so plain in the Novus Ordo Mass that it has lost (with very few exceptions) the transcendent qualilty and the ability to take people toward that internal silence which we need to hear the voice of God.
Benedict XVI spoke well on occasion about these problems:
We have a liturgy which has degenerated so that it has become a show which, with momentary success for the group of liturgical fabricators, strives to render religion interesting in the wake of the frivolities of fashion and seductive moral maxims. Consequently, the trend is the increasingly marked retreat of those who do not look to the liturgy for a spiritual show-master but for the encounter with the living God in whose presence all the ‘doing’ becomes insignificant since only this encounter is able to guarantee us access to the true richness of being.1
While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there. After the Council there were many priests who deliberately raised ‘desacralization’ to the level of a program … Inspired by such reasoning, they put aside the sacred vestments; they have despoiled the churches as much as they could of that splendor which brings to mind the sacred; and they have reduced the liturgy to the language and the gestures of ordinary life, by means of greetings, common signs of friendship, and such things … That which previously was considered most holy – the form in which the liturgy was handed down – suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited. It is intolerable to criticize decisions which have been taken since the Council; on the other hand, if men make question of ancient rules, or even of the great truths of the Faith – for instance, the corporal virginity of Mary, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the immortality of the soul, etc. – nobody complains or only does so with the greatest moderation.2
I was dismayed by the banning of the old Missal, seeing that a similar thing had never happened in the entire history of the liturgy[.] … The promulgation of the banning of the Missal that had been developed in the course of centuries, starting from the time of the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, has brought with it a break in the history of the liturgy whose consequences could be tragic[.] … The old structure was broken to pieces and another was constructed admittedly with material of which the old structure had been made and using also the preceding models[.] … But the fact that [the liturgy] was presented as a new structure, set up against what had been formed in the course of history and was now prohibited, and that the liturgy was made to appear in some ways no longer as a living process but as a product of specialized knowledge and juridical competence, has brought with it some extremely serious damages for us.
In this way, in fact, the impression has arisen that the liturgy is ‘made,’ that it is not something that exists before us, something ‘given,’ but that it depends on our decisions. It follows as a consequence that this decision-making capacity is not recognized only in specialists or in a central authority, but that, in the final analysis, each ‘community’ wants to give itself its own liturgy. But when the liturgy is something each one makes by himself, then it no longer gives us what is its true quality: encounter with the mystery which is not our product but our origin and the wellspring of our life[.] …
I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us. But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance? [Too often] the community is only celebrating itself without its being worthwhile to do so.3
1. From Cardinal Ratzinger’s preface to the 1992 French translation of Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Monsignor Klaus Gamber. (http://www.institute-christ-king.org/latin-mass-resources/traditional-latin-mass/ratzinger-latin-mass)
2. The translated text of an address to the bishops of Chile by Cardinal Ratzinger on July 13, 1988, in Santiago, Chile. (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3032)
3. Quotation from Cdl. Ratzinger’s autobiography, Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977 (Ignatius, 2005). (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=196)
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Thank you, Scoop.
I think we need to take care that we are not juxtaposing an imagined golden past against a decidedly not-golden present. Talking with elderly friends who attended Mass regularly pre Vatican II, I am warned that whatever I imagine, there was not much by way of transcendence for most of a congregation who were left to their own devices for large parts of the service. Yes, they knew the Latin responses and could rote-repeat, as they could with the Creed, but, at least according to these old friends, it wasn’t much of a transcendent experience for many.
It may well be that some priests have tried to compensate for this with liturgical practice not in the rubrics, but to suppose that they have been inspired by some dislike of a transcendent experience requires that last to have been a reality and not a Platonic ideal; it isn’t clear to me that the contrast is quite as your idealistic picture paints it.
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I have no misgivings about problems that have existed from the beginning of time and will last until Christ comes again. The fault usually, in the past and the present, of those who ‘didn’t get it’ was mostly the fault of the Priest or the person in the pew. It was not a result of the Mass itself.
So we had a Mass where it was the exception and not the rule when it failed. For the Mass was in and of itself more quite likely to affect peoples lives and put them in touch with profound holiness and spiritual transcendence that figured quite prominently in movements of the soul to strive toward saintliness and to flee the profane. Not so, with the Novus Ordo which has turned this dynamic into the opposite; where this dynamic is uncommon and almost not existent; a Mass where it is real exception to be moved by an other-worldly, spiritual reality.
I cannot find a Novus Ordo Mass of any quality in my immediate area and I also cannot find a traditional Mass to flee to. So I approach Mass with internal tears asking the old question: “where have they taken my Lord”?
A NO Mass as, BXVI described well, appears to have been written in a University by academics without any understanding whatsoever of what the result would convey or do to the faith. I don’t think you can say the same of the Traditional Mass.
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I daresay that when the Latin Mass came in, those used to the Greek form found it wooden and somewhat lacking in uplift, indeed, having been at Greek Divine Liturgies, including that of St John Chrysostom, I could see why, if anyone thought that, they did so; it is far more conducive to transcendence; but I can cope with the Latin Mass, as I can with the NO. It is who I encounter at the eucharist, not the form, which matters to me; I don’t go to Church for an aesthetic experience (which is as well) but to meet my Lord; I know precisely where He is.
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In suh a case you’d be just as well served by having an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist deliver the Blessed Sacrament to your home and skip the banalities of the sing songs, the clapping and the pats on the back interspersed with the words of encouragement about how lovely are our wonderful selves.
Yes the transcendent is in the Greek Divine Liturgies and it seems rather sad that they now provide a more transcendent experience than does the Roman Rite that has been newly constructed. It is like modern architecture, art or music in comparison with classical expressions of these disciplines.
Benedict XVI had it right in my view, regardless of defenses to the contrary. I feel the banality that is called the Novus Ordo from the visceral through the lack of solemnity and dignity all the way to the impoverished spiritual movement of the soul. It is to me at least a protestant service with the quaint addition of the Blessed Sacrament . . . though noticeably neglected and taken for granted than it was at the time St. Paul condemned their nonchalance and pedestrian view of the Sacrament.
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I don’t go to Church for an aesthetic experience (which is as well) but to meet my Lord; I know precisely where He is.
Could you be a dear, the next time you see god, tell him Hi from Bosco, thanks.
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Sunday is a busy day for me and I’ve not long logged on to this excellent website. I go along with all that chalcedon says in his brilliant introduction to this discussion.
If I wanted to sum up my personal faith it would be these two verses of the Dies Irae
9 Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuæ viæ:
Ne me perdas illa die.
10 Quærens me, sedisti lassus:
Redemisti Crucem passus:
Tantus labor non sit cassus.
Remember O tender Jesus that I am the cause
of your journey. Forget me not on this day.
Seeking for me, you are seated tired and weary
by the suffering of the Cross. You have become
my redeemer. May such travail be not in vain.
“Seeking for me, you are seated tired and weary,” takes me to the woman at the well in St John’s Gospel. Surely one of the most significant passages in the entire Bible.
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Bless you, Malcolm, both for such a comment on such a busy day, and helping to recall us to the tone which Jess established for this place.
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PS I love the Mozart Requiem, but its the Verdi one that moves me most.
The Recordare sung by Janet Baker and Leontyne Price with Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is a glimpse of heaven.
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I agree, Malcolm – in terms of transcendence, it is music, which above all, lifts me – Byrd and Tallis both raise my soul to where I wish it could be all the time 🙂
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Don’t forget John,Sheppard 1515 – 1558
and John Taverner 1509 – 1545.
The latter is less well known but his masses are glorious, especially the Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas. (The Sixteen with Harry Christophers have recorded it. on the helios label
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I have that recording – and it is sublime 🙂
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I agree with you both, all these mentioned are quite wonderful, as are many more.
It reminds me that Jess once told me that you, C. remain a goodly bit an Anglican, and I suspect this is part of why I agree, and think it a great compliment. 🙂
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People tend, I think, to bear the marks of what shaped them ☺️
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I think we all do. So much of protestantism, whether Anglican or Lutheran, or for that matter Methodist, and likely others, is in the theology of our music. It’s a mark I think we can proudly bear.
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To the basic question of this post: “What do we have in common”?
My answer is absolutely nothing except that we are all presumably human.
Their beliefs are not my beliefs, their goals are not my goals, their way of life is not my way of life, their desire for change is not my desire for change, their methods to effect change is rife with manipulation, coercion and violence whcih is contrary to my core values and principles.
To ask to be left alone, just as they were left alone by us in the past, is not even negotiable for them.
In the past, if people did not like what a church had to teach or believe they started another and we did not insist that they change their view . . . unless they wanted to stay in the Church which they obviously disagreed with. Today they insist that the Church change and those who disagree with their views are of course less than human and they should be shut up and shut down as soon as possible.
That in a nutshell is why we now see widespread disagreements within our own flocks. Our adversary is no longer interested in getting what they want by creating the Church of their dreams or a country of their dreams . . . they demand that we accomodate their viewpoint . . . nay, adopt it. I won’t and there are many of like mind out there I’m sure who are not going to knuckle under to their demands for forced compliance to their ideas and desires.
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Now that, was very well said.
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Thank you.
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I’m not sure who all these people are? Just who is being shut down and stopped from speaking? I’m unaware that this Pope has removed the right to teach as a Catholic theologian from anyone? Not answering the Dubia is bad manners and bad practice, but he has not shut up those who asked the question. Neither am I aware that the Pope is saying those who question him are less than human? Which Catholics are doing these things?
In the past, as now, those who thought the Church needed change suggested so and argued the case; sometimes they found themselves excommunicated or imprisoned or even burnt; at this point I’m not aware that those in charge now are doing any of these things to those who oppose them. By identifying all who want change with the devil, are you not doing precisely what you accuse the other side of doing? It is no wonder that dialogue is impossible – if both sides regard themselves are wholly in the right and the other as wholly in the wrong and, to boot, perhaps not even human, then I cannot see in that much that is Christ-like.
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I suppose the constant denial of conservative speakers in college and the difficulty of hiring conservatives to teach in these schools is something you are not aware of then.
And in the Church I also suppose you are not aware of the total disregard for teaching in things such as contraception etc. I suppose this equates to the early days of ‘peaceful protest’. Unfortunately in the Church they are law breakers who have placed their demands on their bishops for changes in the teachings and practices of the Church.
The Pope has not, then, demoted, made irrelevant, removed from prominent positions in the Church anyone that holds to the JPII and BXVI doctrines. I think that is being willfully blind.
If Francis did not shut up the Cardinals . . . he has actively persecuted Cardinal Burke and it remains to be seen what happens now that his demoted position with the Knights of Malta is being effectively carried out by one of the Francis ‘enforcers’.
Less than human statement: I didn’t mention the Pope . . . for his actions are more covert and hidden. Have you read over these last 20 years the bile and accusations placed at the door of anyone and everyone that held to the teachings of the Church on things that wanted changed? Do they now have some cover among many Bishops and Cardinals today that take it out on their priests and thereby the pew sitters who are the ones to suffer this forced attitude which opposes the attitude of the Church that was trying to be enforced by our last two popes?
The Catholics that do these things are progressives that want to make all of us adopt their heterodoxies or heresies. No we no longer burn heretics but then we are not longer the State which had serious punishment for undermining the Church. However, we sadly gave up handing out swift excommunications where appropriate and shutting down the avalanche of protests which have amassed of late. A Church that does not act swiftly and decisively on heresies and apostasies is going to reap the whirlwind that she faces at present.
Of course I am. They want me to embrace evil and worship at the temple of Moloch. I refuse.
They have never wanted dialogue . . . as the Church’s position was delivered by our last two popes in their writings and their talks. They refuse to listen to these Popes and in their disregard and disdain of their teachings they are in my mind anathema. Let them go found their Church of Our Most Infallible Selves.
I don’t consider them inhuman, I presume they are. It is they who are as irrational as a swarm of irritated wasps who are saying such things to the Church as it was before their wonderful ideas of overturning teaching after teaching. And yes that does not make them very Christ-like. That makes them enemies of Christ. Of course we are asked by Mother Church to love our enemies but we are not asked to associate with them if they will not even listen to the Church.
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But, if you listen to C, this is all fake news. 🙂
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Well he belongs to the third group that we haven’t spoken of yet; those who, like the Swiss, always choose neutrality. 🙂
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I have heard much the same during the long years of the last two papacies from those on the liberal wing – and this is the problem, both sides insist on taking one or two examples and blowing them up as though they were a general picture. Yes, Burke has been maginalised, but he has hardly been persecuted. The whole language you use dehumanises those you identify as your enemies; is it so surprising that they return the compliment? If this is Christianity, then it is little wonder few are attracted to it – what a spectacle.
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There has to be give and take in any relationship. That means leaving enough space so as to allow both factions to speak to each other. Charity demands that we listen to the other persons point of view. Did not St Paul say that he became all things to all men so that he might save a few?
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BTW: Concerning the Pope I wonder what he must say or do for you and others to admit that he is culpable for anything at all.
Please tell me that the facts in the following story and the conclusion is wrong and why: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/02/op-ed-violent-pope-by-roberto-de-mattei.html#more
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I am in no position to comment as I only know what the Vatican and the Knights of Malta have said – but that is not what this hostile blogger posts – who to believe on interpretation – the Pope, the Knights or a blogger – hard one.
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Since he is a well respected Italian Roman Catholic historian and author rather than simply a blogger, so I would think the two of you might be of similar minds. 🙂
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I simply don’t know, Scoop. Is he isn objective observer, or does he have an axe to grind?
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He quoted that which we all know and quoted someone who writes of the same malady. Unless everyone is lying I would suspect that the widely reported facts are accurate.
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It may well be he wouldn’t be the first Pope to behave with a high hand, Newman was appalling badly treated, but he didn’t shove off and write lots of complaining letters and join the Old Catholics – as many did.
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No and neither have these groups. They had one unforgivable thing in common. They believed and practiced a traditional form of Catholicism.
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which, surely, teaches that in this vale of tears things won’t be easy?
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Wanna know what all you religious unsaved folk have in common? If you all dropped dead rite now, you would all wake up in hell. One big happy reunion.
The cheery news is….that while youre still on earth, you can ask Jesus to reveal himself to you, and you will be born again. Sorry, staring at a golden trinket and a face full of crackers doesn’t make one born again. Jesus stands at your door this very minute.
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In regards to AL and so-called conservatives and progressives [Catholics and neo-modernists], I found this gentleman whom I had never read of beforehand quite interesting in his remarks: http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/3027-an-amoris-laetitia-interview-of-vatican-liturgical-consulter-and-professor-of-sacramental-theology-msgr-nicola-bux
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